Facebook — word of the year?

“Facebook” is one of 20 words contending for Merriam-Webster’s 2007 “word of the year” contest. Last year’s winner was Stephen Colbert’s “truthiness,” as in, sometimes when Silicon Valley executives tout their latest technology, there is a degree of truthiness.

Merriam-Webster defines “facebook” as a verb, as in “to look up someone’s profile on the popular Internet social network Facebook.” “Facebooking,” meanwhile, is a variation that means “to communicate with others through facebook.com.”

So what kind of competition does Facebook face? There’s “hypocrite.” And “linkability.” We like “blamestorm” (as in, “sitting around in a group, discussing why a deadline was missed or a project failed, and who was responsible.”) And “sardoodledom,” just because it sounds funny. It means “mechanically contrived plot structure and stereotyped or unrealistic characterization in drama.” Like much of television.